Rand Paul blames Garner's death on cigarette taxes

[useful idiot]

On Hannity Paul was interviewed at far greater length about the topic than he was on Hardball. It's even more clear there that the point he was making was the the police shouldn't be out trying to arrest people for minor silly crimes with the same sort of vigilance they would if they were arresting a violent criminal. He also mentioned a case in which someone died for spray painting graffiti when they were put in a chokehold, and compared it to arresting a granny for jaywalking. Paul also called for the cop to be fired. This all sounds reasonable.

These cases have exposed the hypocrisy of the two dominant modes of thinking within the party bases. Liberals want to give every power possible to the government by legislating against every little thing they dislike and forcing people to do everything they want, and then cry foul when that government acts in a way in which all governments with too much power behave: brutally. Conservatives pay lip service to wanting a smaller government and freedom, but then defend every action taken by the out of control and reckless officers who largely constitute the police forces in this country, and want to see selective brutality against those they dislike (ie young blacks, illegal immigrants, etc).

I'm disgusted by the whole thing, particularly because the Democrats have dropped the ball on this in a massive way by turning this into a racial thing (marginalizing the issue) rather than making it clear that police brutality and unchecked power are a bad thing for everyone.